A Little Mistake
by Wolfjackle
Summary: Cat and Marianne's first attempt at inter-world travel goes a little wrong.
1. Chapter 1: An Exciting Day

**AN: This is a Chrestomanci and Howl's Moving Castle crossover. I hope you like it. It's my first attempt at an official fanfic that I'm actually showing anyone, so please give me criticism! I really need some. Not as happy as I could be with this first chapter. (I'm never happy with any writing I ever finish, though, so I have no idea how good or bad it is.) Please comment. Second chapter will be up in a few days.**

An Exciting Day

"Cat, Marianne! Would you settle down? Neither of you have stopped fidgeting since lessons started, and the rest of you aren't much better," scolded Michael Saunders.

"Sorry, Mr. Saunders," chorused his pupils. He looked over at Marianne and they shared an excited smile. Though the reminder from his teacher did make him try to pay attention to the history lesson, Cat knew he was fighting a losing battle. Not ten minutes later, his foot was tapping, and his fingers were drumming on his leg. He couldn't wait for morning lessons to be over. This afternoon, in his magic class with Chrestomanci and Marianne, he was finally going to try traveling between worlds all on his own. Well, Marianne would be with him, but they would be travelling unguided for the first time. They'd been preparing for the past month and a half, and had taken many short day and two-day trips to all sorts of worlds with Chrestomanci. However, now they'd be on their own for the first time, and he couldn't wait to try.

Of course, since he was so excited, time seemed to drag by painfully slowly. He couldn't stop glancing over at Marianne, and sharing a smile or an impatient look. The excitement, of course, had spread to their friends who were having just as hard a time paying attention to their teacher.

Janet, of course, had her own reasons to be interested. She really liked everyone in the castle, but there were times when she missed her own world and everything she had grown up with. She hoped that Cat would be able to take her back to her own world for a visit at some point. Not that she had told him this yet. She had scarcely dared to admit the desire to herself, until Cat had told her that he would be learning how to travel between worlds himself, and then she couldn't help the feeling from making itself known. Besides that, Cat had been her first friend in this strange world. She hoped he'd do alright.

Julia, on the other hand, was somewhat jealous. She knew her magic skills weren't up to solitary inter-world travel, but everyone was so excited, and she couldn't do anything or have anything exciting to look forward too. Even Roger and Joe were working on their latest invention—a machine that could travel underwater.

"Well, I am so glad that tomorrow is Wednesday and I don't have to worry about teaching all of you again. Next time, try to pay a little more attention, won't you?" complained Mr. Saunders at the end of the morning.

The children tried to look sheepish, but they were too happy to really pull off the look. Not to mention, none of them really was very sorry.

Janet walked up to her almost-brother, "So, Cat, are you nervous at all?"

"A bit," he admitted.

Roger chimed in, "I'm sure you won't have any problems with it. You've been studying for so long now! You must have it down by now."

Marianne broke in next, "Oh but Roger, we've always had an adult, namely your father, the most powerful enchanter across multiple worlds, with us. It's quite different when we're going by ourselves."

Janet spoke again, "But you've been studying so hard! I can't imagine Chrestomanci would let you go if he thought you would have any problems. You have to tell us all about it when you get back!"

Cat responded, "It's not like we're going anywhere unique. Just to the world where Conrad Tesdinic lives. We've all heard about it. We'll head over at 3 o'clock sharp when we will meet Mr. Tesdinic for afternoon tea. An hour later Chrestomanci will come and see if we can come back on our own or if we are too tired. We'll be there maybe two hours, at most. Nothing at all exciting will happen."

"I don't care! We still want a full report, right Julia?"

"Of course! Even if all you can tell us is what type of tea and biscuit Mr. Tesdinic likes we want to know."

Marianne laughed, "Of course we'll tell you everything. Though I'm afraid that Cat's right and at the end of the day this will probably prove to be a big let-down."

After that, the children went to lunch and passed a very slow two hours before Cat and Marianne had to meet Chrestomanci.

The enchanter went through the procedure, which was exactly as Cat had explained to Janet. Afterwards, he gave a few words of advice and watched as the two teenagers set up their spell. They worked slowly and carefully, not wanting to mess up, but wishing they could travel as easily between worlds as Chrestomanci, who made it look as easy as walking into a different room.

Cat and Marianne held hands as they started the final process, the actual moving between worlds. Suddenly, the door to Chrestomanci's office burst open, surprising both of the young magic users, so that each tried to head in a different direction, but because they were holding hands, they went in a third, completely different, direction.

_Uh-oh_ was the only thought Cat was able to form before he found himself whipped away, holding on to his friend's hand with all his might, eyes tightly closed.

When he found solid ground beneath him, he opened his eyes slowly and looked at Marianne, but a moment later, she was the last thing on his mind.

A large, moving castle was heading right towards them!


	2. Chapter 2: The Lost Children

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the characters or worlds in which they find themselves. Diana Wynne Jones came up with all that.

**A/N:** Here it is, rather later than I had hoped. Please enjoy the second chapter. I think it's better than the first, longer at least. I realized I forgot to give some background info. This story takes place a few months after the end of HMC. Cat is now 16, and I think Marianne was the same age as him (though I'm not sure). Please point out any inconsistencies with the books. I only have HMC at school with me, so I can't check anything from the Chrestomanci books, which is really bugging me. Also, I'm assuming Sophie is about 20. I didn't see anything in the book with a specific age, but it did say she was just about ready to leave school for good, so she should be at least 18. And I assumed she's older than Michael, who I thought of as about 16/17. 

The Lost Children

Cat threw up a spell to stop the castle on impact, as Marianne grabbed onto his arm and pulled them along. The castle slowed, but didn't stop, and Marianne joined in to help her friend. It helped, but the castle was still coming closer. More force was being used to keep the castle moving. Shortly afterwards, magical attacks were also thrown at the two friends.

"Try to keep the castle still! I'll work on stopping their attacks," Cat directed, as he worked to redirect the spells being aimed at them. He even managed a counter-attack of his own, though nothing to his normal skill since they had both just completed a major working. As it was, he was pressed to keep the spells from hitting them. Often he only had enough time to push them away so they hit the ground on either side. Both children tried to ignore the large creators and strange smells coming from where the spells had hit the ground. It was surprisingly easy with so many other things to focus on. Like not dying.

Marianne did her best to slow down the castle, but it was so close, and without Cat's help, she didn't have as much as an impact as they could wish. It was still coming, and at a faster pace than before.

When the magical attack suddenly ended, it took both of them by surprise, and they both collapsed to the ground. They shared a look wondering what was going to come next, and they picked themselves up, frightened and low on strength. The door to the castle opened and two people—a man and a woman—came out, accompanied by a floating figure of blue fire that was rather hard to see in the bright mid-afternoon sunlight. Cat took a deep breath, tried to calm down and get ready for whatever was coming next.

* * *

It was a normal day in the castle. Sophie and Howl bickered, while Michael opened up the flower-shop. They were all in the middle of lunch, and Sophie was complaining about how Howl never did anything for the store, when the castle gave a strange lurch. Calcifer, who had been peacefully minding his own business, and working his way through two logs Sophie had just given him shot up. "Howl! Someone's attacking the moving castle! Trying to stop it in its tracks!"

"What?" Howl cried. Together they both worked on getting the castle to move again, and magically attacked their assailant in defense.

Michael shot a terrified look at Sophie, who comforted him by saying, "Don't worry. Whatever is going on, Howl and Calcifer will be able to sort it out easily."

As if to disprove her words, most of the plates on the table shattered from a return attack.

That got Sophie angry. She stood up, and declared, "That's it! Whoever is out there just ruined our dishes, not to mention interrupted our meal! Come on Howl, stop playing, we're going to meet them face-to-face! Calcifer, you're coming too! Michael, you stay here." With that, she marched over, and grabbed Howl's arm, at which point both he and Calcifer stopped working any magic. They let the castle stop, and went out the door.

* * *

Cat stood with his back straight and head tall to disguise how scared he was. Marianne was rather pale next to him, and he knew that he wasn't at full strength either. He clasped his hands behind his back so no one would see they were shaking, and whispered to Marianne, "Are you all right?" She gave a slight nod in response. "Let's try to avoid another magical confrontation. Neither of us is up to it." Again she nodded.

The strangers approached, and they realized that the two people really were not that much older than themselves. The woman was only three or four years older than Cat and Marianne at about 20 years old. The man was a few years older than her.

But that was the only thought they had time for before the woman started shouting at them.

"How dare you interfere with other people's houses! There we were, just having a nice, quiet lunch…" Here the man gave a snort, which the other pointedly ignored. "… when all of a sudden, everything jolts, and Calcifer shouts that the castle is under attack!

"As if that weren't enough, you then go and break all our dishes and completely ruined the meal! There were some spells that Howl and Michael were working on that are probably ruined. And some of those might even have been for the king. Honestly! What were you thinking? What did we ever do to you?"

At that moment, the man—Howl? Michael?—put his hand on her arm. "All right, Sophie. That's enough." She glared at him, but let him take over. Turning his attention to the two strangers, he added, "Though I can't help but agree with her. Why did you attack our castle?"

The woman's anger had stunned Cat, but the man was much easier to deal with. So, ignoring the woman, Cat looked at the man and replied, "You thought we attacked you? We honestly didn't mean too…"

"Then how do you explain our ruined lunch and broken plates?" interrupted Sophie with a glare.

Cat closed his eyes, he really didn't want to do this. He was exhausted and could feel a headache coming on, not to mention he was worried about Marianne, who seemed to be content to let him do all the talking as she tried to remain standing. In order to deal with it, he just pretended to be Chrestomanci and gave Sophie an attempt at a vague look. Despite the danger, Marianne made a noise that was obviously a short laugh; the look must not have been as effective as he had hoped. "I broke your plates? Honestly, I was just trying to protect us. Yes, I sent a counter-attack your way, but it was hardly strong enough to do anything."

The floating blue fire then spoke. "If you weren't attacking us, then why'd you try to stop the castle?" it demanded.

Marianne's interest in magical creatures was enough to bring her forward enough to ask, "What are you?" of the fire-demon. Though her only response after finding out was to add, "I've never heard of a fire-demon before."

Sophie, already annoyed, pointed out, "You haven't answered his question yet."

Cat closed his eyes briefly; his head was definitely hurting now. Opening them, he said, "We…traveled here, and found ourselves, unsuspectingly, feet away from your castle with it heading right towards us. We were just trying to protect ourselves."

The man spoke again, "Nonsense, if you were outside of the castle, Calcifer would have known you were there and moved the castle around you. Now, I'll ask again, why did you stop the castle?"

"I told the truth. If you don't believe me, fine, but it's the truth. Maybe we weren't sensed, because we made a mistake and teleported here instead of where we were trying to go. We'll now go on our way and try to find our way back."

"You two can teleport yourselves places?" Howl asked.

"Of course. We learned that yearsago." As an afterthought, Cat added, "What do we owe you for the plates and food? I doubt we have currency for this land, but my guardian is rather rich. I'm sure we could find something to reimburse you with. And I did break them."

"Of course you don't owe us anything. It was all our fault. We jumped to conclusions. As compensation, would you like to come in? We could give you some food."

"Let me discuss it with Marianne." Cat turned to his friend and lowered his voice. "Do you want to head back now? I kind of want to get to know these people better. The man at least is at enchanter level. And she is no mean witch, did you notice the spells she was sending our way during her speech? Besides, the others wouldn't think it very satisfactory if we just called Him without having a good look around first. Anyway, I could do with a good meal, and it probably couldn't hurt you either."

"I do want to learn more about the fire demon… But everyone'll be worried."

"I know, we'll call them in just a short while. We're here, let's have some fun." Cat smiled. "You know He would make us come home straight away if He were here." Habit kept either of them from saying Chrestomanci's name before they were ready to have him come, even though they both knew he couldn't cross worlds unless you called his name three times in a row. Cat looked up at the other people. "All right, we'll accept your offer."

"Great! Welcome to our home!" Howl said, opening the door wide, smiling as everyone came in.

**A/N:** Hope you enjoyed it, now I'll be begging for some reviews. I really want to know what you think. And I hope you'll share criticism/suggestions/both. Thanks!


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